An account of a 38 year old transsexual female, as far as she can remember, of how she come of age:

At 11 years old, a best friend went against this certain transsexual girl because she was girlish and tried to drown her in the school swimming pool. The discipline master at that time was also in charge of swimming lessons, thought she is “problem boy” and basically did nothing as he believed she is lying.

At 12 years old, her body was severely violated by two men when she was walking back from school.

At 14 years old, she was brutalized and beaten up in high school for being effeminate on a weekly basis for a few years. The worst was when she was dragged into the toilet and had her head crashed against the wall until she fainted. Teachers took no action, but blamed her for “provoking the boys”.

At 15 years old, she was mentally poisoned by the church opposite the school for having “sexual bondage”, and began to blame her mother for making her this way, and stopped speaking to her for many years. She also blamed herself for her great sin and could not seem to “repent” from herself.

At 16 years old, she turned into gangsterism when she changed school, as a way to hide her identity from her previous school, and also as a step forward to try be more masculine, a boy for family, friends and church members. She started drinking, and got into vices. She barely scrapped through SPM level studies.

At 17 years old, she was excommunicated from her church for allegedly sexually molesting a deaf girl. Her innocence was known the same year; the church offered neither apology nor compensation.

At 18 years old, she was taken as a “toyboy” by a 40 year old woman. The church blamed her again. Ashamed to go back to the parents and with no friends, she decided there was no point being a boy.

At 19 years old, she went to Kuala Lumpur and began her first transition. There she befriended a businessman, who later “rented” her to other men for a few months. She attempted suicide for the first time. After surviving the attempt, she escaped back to her hometown Ipoh, vowing never to appear herself ever again.

At 20 years old, she tried to be a complete “he”, back in college with a girlfriend and part-time job at a paging centre. “He” was also a pirated VCD seller, and at night dealt with synthetic drugs for discos. This went on for several years until “he” started to get tired of night life and wanted a way out.

At 24 years old, “he” started work as an international student coordinator. “He” became a womanizer and slept with countless women for a few years until “he” eventually got exhausted and fed up with life with triads, and decided to go clean. “His” conquest on women continued, even while being with a girlfriend.

At 27 years old, “he” became a computer lecturer and decided to go serious and faithful with a lady.

At 28 years old, “he” met “his” dream fiancée and wanted to be the best “man” in her life. After leaving “him” with credit debt amounting to over RM 20,000 and cheating “his” parents as well, she broke up with “him”. The girl said she felt she was sleeping with a woman. “He”, later survived a second suicide attempt.

At 29 years old, “he” decided to be totally out as herself, who she is, sacrificing everything and started to settle into Petaling Jaya, permanently. She lost all her friends but a few, and her entire life as a person. But as she transitioned, she was not able to get jobs and hold on to her rented room, and she became desperate.

At 30 years old, she ended up a call girl for an escort website. While she had a few good clients, violent sexual abuse usually happened, and she was forced to submit. After a bad incident at a hotel in Damansara town, she called it quits, ending up in a mama-san Karaoke bar in Ipoh Street as girl no. 7.

At 31 years old, she started her first job being a proud woman, as a frame trading company sales person. She later stopped being a karaoke girl, and started to be an advocate for the transsexual and gay population. She was once arrested and brought to the Section 11 Shah Alam police station on suspected prostitution while hanging out with sex workers in Sunway City. Her car was also vandalized by transphobic elements near her home.

At 32 years old, she got married to an Australian man who promised her the world, and she left her whole life in her country to be with him in Darwin, only to be dumped by him few days before her SRS operation in Thailand with nothing. She returned to Malaysia and had to start life all over again after a year with him. With the help of some from the local LGBT community, she had some funds and went into NGO work.

At 33 years old, she got deeply involved with the Seksualiti Merdeka movement, and became one of the faces of the transsexual population. She also finally hit blessings with her first corporate job as the licensing agent for one of the biggest cartoon brands in Asia. At this time she promised herself whatever happens, to never go dump in life again, and her battle with herself and clinical depression begins.

At 34 years old, after a conversation with her mentor regarding her “incriminating” relations to the Seksualiti Merdeka movement, and taking advantage of a gay Muslim friend attempting to play her out, she bombed bridges with the movement, losing most of her LGBT friends, realizing separation was the only way to advocate for them, especially when she is starting to get noticed in the straight public life. She also made her first conscious choice to fight for a better tomorrow and attempted to step out to take part in society.

At 35 years old, after being cheated by the gay Muslim friend she trusted to leave her career to work with a fraud, she was jobless. Keeping the promise to her mentor never to be associated with negativity since she has a corporate profile, she took the best job in the worst situation, as a pub DJ in Damansara town on minimum wage equivalent to foreign workers. She had to depend on tips for meals.

At 36 years old, one of her copywriting clients gave her a call, and entrusted her as the marketing manager of his company. She landed a few high profile accounts, increasing her corporate clientele. Her former clients also engaged her for writing. Her social life among straight people grew plenty.

At 37 years old, she started to clear her rising debts, spending time only with meaningful people, learnt to be at peace alone, and most importantly gained the respect of the general public. It speaks a lot when there were pub raids and street roadblocks, but she was never disturbed by any authorities.

At 38 years old, she has been a MarCom Manager for more than 2 years and has other offers as well, but chose to stay with her company. She is winning the battle with clinical depression, earned a great amount of straight privilege, learning from great gurus and has inspiration with support by straight pals, some she took time to win over their scepticism first. She is erasing her credit card debts. Though she still has debts to pay and demons to fight, she will get better in time and at least she can finally see her future.

She feels comfortable and consistently jovial today, with friends who love her and who she can love, finding solace in herself, doing the things she loves to do, freedom to move about without fear, the majority recognizing her as a woman and a climate she has built by simply representing herself well, and most importantly, straight people accept her with pride, honour and dignity she deservedly earned.

This is probably a boring story, because when one reads through it, there is happiness and no more victimhood at the end. Because everybody needs to feel, and sometimes there are people who choose to look at the sexual violence and brutality because they are so used, they internalized it. For some, it is the only way to survive, because without it, they cannot drum up popularity and funds.

A normal life seems unattainable, and many need their suffering to gain attention. They become defined by their actions as victims; take away that and they become empty shells. They are putting themselves exactly where society want them to be, which is where they want to be. Perhaps some will find happiness in that box they marginalized themselves into. But there is more to life than that.

She is now a very different person than she was many years ago. And all that takes are just 11 principles that seem easy to digest, but in actual action is difficult to do. We have only one short life to make it extraordinary, and if we remain in the hole and refuse to accept what we could and should do, our lives will be stagnated in an endless circle and nothing ever gets done with no real results. These principles changed the lives of the people who inspired her and made her the survivor she is today.

1) never be a victim
2) own responsibility
3) cut off toxic people
4) never blame anybody
5) make the right choices
6) live life with no excuses
7) mix with the right people
8) know how to carry oneself
9) always experience new things
10) do not let anyone be a shadow
11) the present must not be the future’s regret

She only realized these at 36 years old, only then life began to progress. Well, better late than never.

However, any mention of the bullies harassing the young boy T. Kavinraj with anti-gay derogatory terms, has been silenced.

It is uncertain whether this is requested by the family, or it is an intentional removal of the implications due to gay bullying by the mainstream media.

For too long, the focus of teen suicides has been centred solely on the aspect of depression and mental health problems.

What should be done now is to go address the issue at the roots, and in regards to this news, the bullies themselves, and to stop tacitly shifting the blame to the suicide victims.

Steps need to be done to educate parents about schoolyard bullying, equipping teachers and educators on how to tackle the issue of abuse in schools, and of course, to formulate much stricter laws against bullies.

Bullying, especially targeting perceived gay behaviour, has happened for so many years. If no action is taken, the death toll will continue to quietly rise, not only in Malaysia, but also the world.

Heterosexual male entitlement is often the basis of taunts, insults and abuse, and it often views anything else as lesser or inferior. Perhaps a solution would be to first instill equality of all sex and genders, along with sexuality and gender identity, from school level. For now, we pray for the safety of our children in our schools.

Rest in peace among the angels, T. Kavinraj. They cannot torment you anymore.

A call to the local Befrienders KL (a support system for depressed and suicidal people) revealed that they do regularly receive calls from gays, lesbians and transgender people, with gay men making up a huge bulk of their callers.

However, there has not been a mainstream news report on any youth suicide of such, with a safe assumption that it may be due to the culture of gay shaming in Asia.

(Serdang, 8/2/14) A 13-year-old boy in Form One who scored 4As in the UPSR exam last year was ridiculed by classmates for acting sissy like a “pondan.” The humiliation was apparently too great for the boy to bear, so much so that he ended up taking his own life by drinking pesticide in the toilet.

Earlier, the deceased had sought help from a teacher who had then reprimanded the students involved, but they continued to make fun of him. The deceased’s mother had intended to go to the school next week to talk about the problem, but before that could happen, her son had committed suicide yesterday.

The deceased* who lived in Bandar Rinching, Semenyih, was the eldest among four siblings. Their father had passed away more than a year ago.

The teenager died after drinking a bottle of pesticide last night in the toilet of his home. His body was later taken to Hospital Serdang for a post mortem.

The deceased’s 43 years old mother*, when met at the hospital, said that it was not long after her son started attending the new school when he complained of being ridiculed by classmates. She said her son’s appearance and demeanor was considered “sissy” and he was continuously laughed at by classmates who called him “pondan.”

She said she had advised her son that if he ever encountered any problem, that he should try to solve it on his own and not bother asking help from the family. She had advised him to seek help from his teacher, and if he could not communicate in Bahasa, he could get help from an Indian teacher.

She revealed that her deceased husband, who had planted some vegetables in their backyard before, had stored some leftover pesticide on a high shelf in the toilet. Her son had gone into the toilet at about 9:15 pm and had allegedly consumed the pesticide.

Upon discovery by the family, the boy was rushed to a nearby clinic, but the effect of the poison kicked in and he died in the clinic.

When asked if the deceased had taken his life as the result of his classmates’ ridicule, the police indicated that they had not received such a complaint. For the time being, the case has been classified as sudden death.

*The correct names of the deceased and his mother could not be ascertained as of translation time.

I am a victim. I have been depressed, hurt, angered, pained and everything, but if there is something which I did not thought of before is that I am a victim. I have often blamed myself for believing in what I was told by people that profess love to God. Having analyzed and realized, I thought I allowed people to treat my gender disorder as some kind of sexual brokenness that needs to be changed. I always believed that it was me who let the people in the church brainwashing me in to thinking there must be something my mom or dad had done that made me the gender queer I am, that later put severe strain on a relationship that was never under threat until a youth pastor convinced me.

Reading Edmund Smith’s latest forays into the church, still choosing to use a mental health condition as an additional topic for his ex-gay talks, it became so apparent to me now that how evil this man is, refusing to acknowledge the consequence of his actions upon some gullible youth. Many have left such ministry, and the latest closure for Exodus International, the biggest ex-gay ministry in the world, comes with lots of apologies to those lives they have destroyed and the hurt they have caused to people’s souls. It has been 7 years now that I have known him. He is not going to apologize.

I have mellowed down on posting about him. I read back and sometimes smile at Edmund’s lack of intellect and my own sarcastic anger towards him, but refusing to go ad hominem, I find it hard to take that a man could be so irresponsible to those he had cheated with his self made mix of sexuality lessons that have no bearing on truth. People used to think I am obsessed with him. I thought so, but seriously, reading his latest activities, I am not. He is a reminder that I am a victim, and that there will be other victims and what he says will affect the victim’s relationships, from family to even God.

I have been asked to build a case to sue Wesley Methodist Church and my former school SM Methodist ACS Ipoh, for not giving me a normal childhood that I can grow as naturally as anyone, and the later for not protecting me against forces such as bullies, which in turn affected my studies and later my whole life, driving me to severe clinical depression and suicidal thoughts. I am their consequence, which they just ignored as they go about their lives like nothing ever happened, while I suffer in silence, in sorrow and in a wormhole of regret I can never get out of for the rest of my life.

Edmund Smith represents that ignorance, and me, the consequence of his ignorance. He is the symbol of the devil incarnate that led me to a path of self-destruction, denial and rejection of who I am for decades. He becomes the mark of deception that caused my torment of lost youth and young adulthood that can never be taken back. I used to think, as an ex-gay survivor, that he was my polar opposite. I was wrong. He is the bully, misusing his authority as a pastor to teach myths about people like me, expecting people to buy it without doing any scientific research or general study. I am the victim, as people are blinded by the deception and wrongly treat me and many others, as broken, and being forced to fit a gender mold that causes grieve instead of getting mental and medical help.

Edmund Smith will have his followers and with pride and ego-inflation calls himself “pastor”. He tried to make me a poster ex-transgender once. He failed, because at best he changed from a transvestite. I cannot ever change because I am a woman born transsexual. Sometimes, I even doubt he had ever been a transgender person, based on the contradictions of his stories. Blame it on churches training their members into simplistic minds. Now I stand as a ex-gay victim, and I need to protect myself from the continuing onslaught of misinformation and misrepresentation presented by him. Most of all, I hope, someday, when another Yuki arises from the ashes of his ministry, she will know, she is never alone.